Top 5 Thoughts Of... Today

It's been a few months and I know there are one or two of you out there who actually read this, and I had a few unclassifiable things running through my brain case today, so here we go. Naturally, I thought of all this while I was at work, but I had the good sense to actually jot down some notes so I would have a framework upon which to build.

So here we go:

1. "This iced coffee is delicious. We're teetering on the edge of perfection here." Like I said, I was at work, and it has been my ritual lately to swing by McDonald's and get a large hazelnut iced coffee on my way in. For some reason, no other coffee quite does the job; Dunkin Donuts' tastes good, but it doesn't give me the energy that McDonald's does. I don't know why, but there you have it, and today's was particularly delicious, with just the right blend of cream, sugar, and hazelnut syrup.

2. What I wouldn't give to be able to wander down the hall, barge into 305, and declare "Oh, HI folks!" before launching into the Billcast. Catharsis at its finest, and I could surely use it.

3. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was a fun game, and not at all destructive, despite what Danny Latin maintains about the time he just cut the power to my computer while I was in the middle of playing it.

4. I ran a mile in Wii Fit yesterday, so I effectively hopped back and forth on my feet for 14 solid minutes. My calves are on FIRE.

5. Happy New Year.

Well that was brief enough. I should probably do this more often.

Milk And Cookies

Eating cookies is never a simple matter. Oh sure, it's simple enough in practice, but when you delve a bit deeper, it becomes a matter of delicate balance. Once you start eating a cookie, you get thirsty, and while there are certainly a wide range of options when it comes to beverages, the natural thirst quenching champion in this arena is milk.

But milk is a very tricky substance, and this is where it starts to get complicated. You see, not enough milk, and you have to get up off your butt when you run out so you can finish eating your cookies with the least amount of cognitive dissonance (OH SNAP, SHAKY APPLICATION OF COMS THEORY). Too MUCH milk, on the other hand, and you encounter the opposite problem. You're left with a glass (actually I prefer plastics) of more milk than you can drink comfortably without the aid of cookies, at which point you're forced to retrieve more cookies.

But how many cookies? You have to carefully gauge the amount of milk left in your cup so as not to take too many cookies, because if you do, then you won't have enough milk, and the cycle begins anew. The real art here is in calculating exactly how much milk to put in the cup on the first try; the acquisition of extra cookies only follows after you've already biffed the milk portion.

I find this scenario mirrors the ebb and flow of life's fortunes. What we have is never good enough; we always need something more. Once we've got what we want, we have to move on to the next big thing. After too much of that, we're reminded of why we wanted what we wanted in the first place, until we've had enough of that once again. On and on, back and forth. It's a vicious cycle.

Or maybe I'm the only one who has that much trouble just drinking the leftover milk.

IT'S ALIVE!

Oh buddy boy... it's that time again. Time to start... BLOGGING!

Yes yes, I know what you're thinking. Well, it's one of two things.

1. Holy cow, I thought this blog was dead forever, but what great joy it brings me to see new life breathed into it once again!

2. Alright, so what have you got to offer me after all this time?

3. What is this noise?

Okay, so that's three things. I'm rusty, bear with me; it's been over a year since I last picked up the metaphorical pen, and in those 365+ days, I'm certain I've lost some of my touch. Heck, it's been about two and a half years since I did any REAL earnest work on this thing. I know, that's far too long, and to expect anyone to be interested in what I have to say after such an interval is a stretch at best.

But hey, Andrew Timm will read this, and that's good enough for me.

Writing is something I've always personally enjoyed... hang on, I have to get up and go pause my music. I'm not terribly good at multitasking, and any distractions at all cause my thoughts to become muddled.

Okay, that's better. Now there are a few things I have to clear up before anyone starts yelling at me. First of all, while the technical term for what I've got here is a blog, I am not a "blogger" in the conventional sense. I don't aim to follow any particular rules or structure in my posts, and if you take a look at my previous entries you'll note that this is more of a collection of rambling essays than of "blog posts." I'm still gonna refer to them as blog posts though, because that's easier and sounds less ridiculous than saying "rambling essays" all the time. If you know me, then you know that I kind of like to do my own thing, and if you don't know me then you will probably not enjoy this blog in the slightest, as it's mostly intended to entertain myself and some of my good buddies who happen to enjoy my rather opinionated prose. I'm not looking to make a living here, I just want to have a good time.

As a subset of that last point, you've probably encountered the phrase "less is more" on a few occasions in your lifetime. Well kids, that's going out the window here. Brevity, as far as I'm concerned, is not entertaining. I love words, and I like to see what I can do with different combinations of them in front of a period. This, of course, is not to say that I'm going to be long-winded just for the sake of being long-winded, but rather just to emphasize that if I think something sounds better with more words, I'm going to use more and not dummy it down just because you don't feel like taking half a second to scan your eyes over a few extra letters. If you don't like it, go read someone else's nicely contained, bullet pointed list and get the eff off. I ramble, and I enjoy it. This is my blog, not yours, and it's not meant for the "TL;DR" crowd. Those people are morons. If you are among their numbers, I am absolutely not sorry for hurting your feelings.

As you may have noticed by now, this post isn't going anywhere in particular; this is mostly just an exercise to help me get back into the swing of things and to likewise let you know that I'm getting back into said swing. But in the vein of introduction and foresight, I will say this: 2011 was one heck of a year. Good Lord Almighty there is so much I could say about that one single year and everything that happened during its span... I mean, 2009 was a pivotal, life-altering year (and I guess by comparison 2010 was kind of like a fart in the pages of history), but 2011 was... earth-shattering. Yeah, I guess that's a decent hyperbolic way to describe it. So I guess that's what I'll leave you with tonight. Sometime in the near future, I'll give you my take on 2011 and its events. I'd love to get into it now, but it's pretty late and I should probably get some sleep at some point. I don't think I could do a post like that justice in this frame of mind, but it's something I definitely need to tackle.

Oh and one last thing before I go: the date on this post is gonna be February 15th, but in actuality it's March 29th (or 30th technically I guess, since it's after midnight). I'm a stickler for tradition, and there's no way I'm gonna let an anniversary of this blog's creation go without recognition while it still lives. It's now been (over) three delightful years since I first posted on this blog, and hopefully now that I've got a cave of my own in which to lurk, I'll get around to many more posts this year than I have in the last two and a half years. Fingers crossed.

I Am Pleasantly Warm Because

A few days ago I found my flannel shirt underneath the cushion of this nice little couch here. I was a bit distraught, since I couldn't remember what I had done with the shirt and had looked in every conceivable place, but lo and behold, it was right beneath me the entire time.

Unfortunately, this is not my couch; I sleep on it often enough (sometimes I sleep on the other couch, sometimes on the floor), but I cannot call the couch my own. As a matter of fact, I don't have any space of my own anymore. It's been almost two months since I slept in a bed, which is to say it's been almost two months since I was evicted from my house. I've taken up residence... well, somewhere else, I suppose there's no need to explicitly divulge where I am right now. Everyone from around here knows, and it doesn't really matter to everyone who isn't from around here.

Don't let the posting date fool you, I know it says February 15th, but that's just because I saved a draft on that date and vowed to come back later and actually post something. Why February 15th? Because that was exactly two years from the day that I started this fine blog, and I like to commemorate occasions like that. As I write this, it's actually the wee hours of March 2nd, and I should have begun Mustache March by now, but I haven't yet shaved off the scruff that's been growing on my face for about the last two weeks. I should get on that.

But yeah. It's pretty late (4:09 AM at the moment) and Diana is sleeping on the other couch. "OH MY GOSH WHO IS DIANA?!" Relax kids, Diana is my Asian friend who happens to be one of the other orphans taking refuge in this fine establishment. She's a girl, but I can overlook that particular flaw; we get along pretty well when she isn't eating all the ziti. She assured me last night that she couldn't hear the music through my headphones and that my computer wasn't otherwise keeping her awake, but I'm never sure about those kinds of things, especially with the way I tend to KLACKA-LACKA-LACKA on the keyboard, as Danny Latin could undoubtedly attest. Usually there's a lot going on in this house considering its fairly dense population, but the last two nights have been particularly quiet, and I rather enjoy the respite. It gives me a bit of time to sit and listen to my music and think and... well, work on this blog that I promised Andrew Timm.

Someday soon I'm gonna post something with real substance. Right now though, I have to take the time that's available here and post what I can, since I never know what's gonna be happening in the upcoming days and when I'll get another chance to just sit down without any distractions. I'm probably gonna have to spend most of Thursday and Friday night prepping my standard deck for Gameday on Saturday (the priorities in my life are absolutely in perfect order... I want a full art Black Sun's Zenith, dangit). I know I make pretty much the same excuse at the end of every lame placeholder blog I post, but this is legit. I've got an idea or two cooking, I just need to sit down and get them exactly right. They're nothing revolutionary, but maybe you guys will find them interesting (and Andrew Timm, the writing I was doing in that status I aimed at you is not part of this post, but one of the ideas that I'm kinda-sorta working on, just so you know).

I know you're all comforted by my triumphant return to the blogging scene, if only because now you're reassured that I haven't given up the ship just yet. Aye maties, there are plenty of uncharted waters to traverse, and plenty of other stupid metaphors to abuse along the way. And with that, dear readers, rather than try to artificially cram anything into this post, I'll just leave you be for the night and rest my weary head.

Top 10 Thoughts (Minus Three) of the Last Few Days

My my my. It really has been over two months since I've posted anything here. To all my loyal followers (I understand there actually are a couple of you), I sincerely apologize. Inspiration has been in short supply lately, but I've got a few things I want to say, so I'm gonna adapt an old Andrew Clark format and just post the thoughts I have in list form. That way I don't have to worry about continuity or transitions in between items, I can just bounce forth to the next topic once I run out of stuff to say about the current one.

GET READY

HERE WE GO

1. In my estimation, the Christmas season begins on Black Friday, but culturally, we've been entrenched in holiday trappings for almost a month now. I call this "Christmas creep," and I actually wrote a post for this very subject for the blog Danny Latin and I started last year (you can find said post here, if you're so inclined). Last year I noted that Christmas music began its 24/7 rotation on the local radio stations on Veterans' Day... this year it started November 1st. I swear, within a few years we'll be getting it just after Labor Day.

2. The deluge of Facebook status updates I got about people going on Thanksgiving break made me realize how much I miss that feeling of relief that accompanies being able to leave school behind for a week or a month. Sure, it's nice to not be in school at all, but there's something about coming back from your last class before break and knowing you won't have to go through that wretched ordeal at all for a little while that you can't quite capture outside of that environment. I always particularly liked it when I my last assignment was due or my last final took place several days before I actually had to leave. That way I had a few days to just chill and hang out with my friends before break, and those were always the best times.

3. On the same token, I DO NOT miss the work that went with the territory. I'll never again have to write another research paper, and that is just fine and dandy with me. The first week back after Thanksgiving break in my singular year of grad school (and really the only week before finals that year) was one of the most unpleasant stretches of time I have ever known. Of course, by the time that Friday rolled around, the hell of trying to complete an entire semester's worth of papers and projects was behind me, and I had nothing but Coffeehouse, Starcraft, and a couple easy finals to look forward to.

4. I am sick of all the blasted rain. I went outside this morning around 6:30 and it was raining... and it was also about 50 degrees out. THIS IS UPSTATE NEW YORK, FOR CRYIN OUT LOUD. GIMME SOME SNOW ALREADY. Granted, snow actually makes my job more difficult, because I then have to vacuum up all the pieces of rock salt that people track in, but I'd rather deal with that than dodging lake-sized puddles and having to put my hood up just to go outside. Man I hate rain.

5. I was taking a nap earlier, and I had this dream that I was interning for some kind of record company, and because of that, Ray Toro and Frank Iero were staying at my house and crashing in my living room. That was pretty cool, except I discovered that Ray Toro was actually pushing 60 years old, and then Kesha was wandering around putting up fliers for her next show. Initially I was like "ewwwwwww get away from me," but she started talking to me and she turned out to be really nice, and I developed an interest in her, which left me with one of those imaginary post-dream crushes on Kesha, and that made me want to vomit.

6. Speaking of Ray and Frank, the latest effort by My Chemical Romance, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, is a very good album. Not phenomenal, like The Black Parade, but very good. If you've never watched the videos for "Na Na Na" and "SING," you should do so, in that order. They tell a cool story.

7. I stumbled upon a striking truth recently: Women are not evil; evil is simply a universal condition of the human heart. I wish I had realized that a couple years ago... I think I screwed some things up. Whoops. This is not to say that they're not emotional and irrational and crazy; all of the above still apply. They're just not malicious creatures, or at least not any more malicious than the rest of us normal people.

I think those are enough thoughts for now, especially because I've essentially run out of things to say. I could use some feedback though; if you are one of those few people who actually follows my blog, or if you're just a random traveler who happened to stumble upon it for the first time and you'd like to compare this to my earlier work, let me know whether you like this list form or my typical essay style better, and I'll see what I can do about that in the future.

A Blog For Two Andrews

Alright kids, it's time to plunge headlong into the blogging world. I don't know exactly where we're going, but the only way to get anywhere is to go, so let's do just that.

About a month ago, Andrew Timm informed me that I had not posted a blog in quite some time. I was quite aware of this little fact, but I also figured no one really cared either, so I would just get around to it when I felt like it. Truth be told, it was encouraging to know that someone out there actually wanted to hear more of what I have to say, whatever that may be, so I vowed to write a new blog as soon as I got the inspiration.

Well, inspiration is in short supply these days, so since then I haven't actually posted anything. I mulled a few possibilities, but nothing ever seemed to really amount to all that much, so I never made any formal attempts at blogging. And then, after several terrible games of Starcraft 2 with Andrew Clark, I suddenly felt almost inspired. It was then that I realized that my inspiration, as I've said before, does not actually come from dealing with girls, it comes from being pissed off (I just usually happen to get pissed off as a by-product of dealing with girls). Andrew informed me following those games that he was going to post a blog, and encouraged me to do so as well. Thus, the smoldering ashes of Starcraft defeat have been reignited by the coals of indignance and have burst forth into the glorious flame of bloggery.

If you recall, last year I posted a Deleted Scenes blog; a collection of drafts that, for whatever reason, I didn't feel were good enough to actually be posted as or in a blog. I did enjoy reflecting on what I had written in those drafts, and I plan to do that again this year for all the drafts I saved over the last year. Funny thing is, while I didn't actually post that often, I saved a bunch of drafts (16, for the record, though a few of them are just titles without any body), and a lot of them are pretty well developed. I'm not gonna get into that now, but I promise you, dear readers, I will post them sometime in the future.

You know, I've encountered some reasonably good fortune lately. Nothing huge, just little things that make me happy... which makes me a little uneasy, frankly. I get the feeling that I'm on the precipice of some Great Disaster. Maybe it's just the season... we are in that nebulous early September void of not-quite-summer-but-not-quite-fall, and I've never been a fan of this time of year. Still, when things go reasonably well for long enough, you start to wonder when everything is gonna explode. I just hope it waits till after the Scars of Mirrodin prerelease this weekend.

I'm getting a little sick of OK Go and their gimmicky music videos. The treadmill thing was cool and innovative, and then they one-upped themselves with that Rube Goldberg machine video, but the song for that video wasn't even particularly good. Now they've got some thing with buckets and dogs doing tricks or something... the novelty of your novelty music videos is starting to wear off, guys. I feel like you're grasping at straws here. Just make a normal music video for once. You can do something cool, creative, and funny without making it look like a talent show audition. Maybe, I dunno, try and tell a story. That's the beauty of the music video format; you can use the song to provide the backdrop for a visual story, or use the video to illustrate the story of the song. I feel like doing stupid human (or pet) tricks with a song playing in the background is almost a waste of space. So there's my two cents on that.

This may be nothing more than a placeholder blog until I can get something real going, but I said I was gonna let this blog write itself, and that's exactly what I did. I hear that's what professional authors do too, and now you know exactly why I'm not a professional author. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this little nugget, and just remember: if you want me to post something here, just pester me about it. I'll get it done eventually.

Late Night Drivel

Tonight feels like a night for blogging. I don't have much to say, exactly, but since no one else is saying anything at all, I might as well throw my voice out into the void. I guess it's better than sitting here and watching How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days by myself. I hear it's one of those chick flicks that guys like too (hopefully it's like 27 Dresses, I quite enjoyed that movie)... whatever the case, Dr. Jess recommended it to me on the long and perilous drive back from Smith Mountain Lake back in May (or maybe it was on the way there, I don't remember), so I'll check it out sooner or later. Just not tonight.

It is bloody hot outside and we don't have air conditioning, which makes our house a veritable incinerator. Even at night when it's reasonably cool outside, our house for some reason holds the heat in like a champ. It's like the inferno factor on steroids.

I briefly considered going on a rant about some of the things that bother me, but I don't have the heart. I'd say it's probably the heat, but this has been an ongoing problem, so I don't think I can blame it entirely on the heat. Ranting is just so ineffectual, especially these days.

I almost decided not to post this, just to save it as a draft and maybe come back to it later. Then I realized that's what I do almost every time I come to this page. My blog has mutated from a place where I post my thoughts into a crypt full of half-finished ideas and things I'm just afraid to say to the general public. I've got probably four or five drafts that I spent a good amount of time working on, only to abandon because I couldn't quite figure out how to get across what I was trying to say, or because I realized what I was saying was too personal, or just because whatever I was talking about was ultimately inconsequential. But not tonight. Tonight, this post gets published, inconsequential or otherwise.

I guess I haven't really said much of anything here, but at least stopping by gave me something to do for a little while. I won't bother notifying the Facebook world of this post, since the people who follow this blog will probably find it regardless, and the people who don't probably wouldn't read it anyway. Nevertheless, here it is, a hearty reward ("ha," he said, indicating sarcasm) for those of you dilligent enough to seek it out. It does feel a little cooler in here now. And you know what? I think I will watch that movie tonight.